1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system and method for inter-gallery trading of artworks.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various online systems have been proposed and implemented for dealing in (buying and selling) digital artworks. For example, U.S. Pat. Appl. Pub. 2002/0141584, entitled “Clearinghouse for enabling real-time remote digital rights management, copyright protection and distribution auditing,” describes a digital-works clearinghouse: “A digital-works Clearinghouse comprises a database, which stores meta-information relating to digital-works and a server configured to coordinate digital-works transactions, distribution, auditing, tracking, monitoring, advertisement insertion and collection of meta-data of a digital work such that, a digital-work Publisher can remotely monitor a digital work by communicating with the Clearinghouse server regarding the digital work. Furthermore, the digital-works Clearinghouse comprises a software application that is modular and is given to the digital-works Distributor's such that it is responsible for enabling copyright protection, distribution, distribution auditing and communicating with Clearinghouse and other Distributors whereby a Publisher can remotely monitor their digital work.” (Abstract.)
U.S. Pat. App. Pub. 2007/0011094, entitled “Tools for accessing digital works”, describes apparatus that comprise a user interface, a rendering device, a clearinghouse communicator, and an enable mechanism. The user interface includes a digital work choosing mechanism to choose a digital work for rendering. At least one repository holds digital works and includes the chosen digital work. The rendering device obtains a representation of the chosen digital work from the repository and renders the chosen digital work. A clearinghouse communicator electronically sends rights criteria to a remote clearinghouse and receives rights defining information from the clearinghouse. The enable mechanism enables the rendering device to render the chosen digital work in accordance with the rights defining information.
Numerous online resources are also available for buying and selling original fine art. For example, some art galleries and artists have websites allowing users to view images of their artworks and obtain price and other information about the artworks.